The present invention relates to network management systems and to a framework and methods for such systems.
Network management systems find application to the management of systems remotely via a telecommunications system. Network management systems are known which permit the manipulation and control of a large number and variety of objects over a network in accordance with a relatively limited set of commands, including operations such as GET, SET, ACTION, CREATE and DELETE. An example of such a network management system is the so-called Telecommunications Management Network (TMN) environment.
The TMN environment provides an industry standard Common Management Information Protocol (CMIP) and supports X710/ISO 9595 Common Management Information Services (CMIS) under that protocol. These services allow manipulation of a large number and variety of objects over a network in accordance with a relatively limited set of commands, including operations such as GET, SET, ACTION, CREATE and DELETE.
The physical configuration of the network on which the network management system is configured can take many different forms, including, by way of example, a public switched telephone network and/or a local area network and/or a dedicated network connecting computer and other equipment within a local area and/or over a wider area or an open network such as the Internet or an intranet. The objects typically comprise parameters and methods used to model a piece of equipment, a component of that equipment, an operation of the equipment or a component thereof, and so on.
In the TMN environment, for example, objects are defined in accordance with the industry standard X722/ISO-10165-4 Guidelines for Definition of Managed Objects (GDMO). The GDMO defines data, or parameter, types in accordance with the X208/ISO-8824 Abstract Syntax Notation One (ASN.1) and the X209/ISO-8825 Specification of Basic Encoding Rules for Abstract Notation One (BER) for data notation. These various industry standards are defined by the International Standards Organisation (ISO).
GDMO is a formal descriptive language which is not directly understood by a computer. It is therefore necessary to convert GDMO into a computer-understandable format. As there is no standard for such a process, this often leads to multiple interpretations, which in turn leads to inter-operability problems.
In order to invoke the CMIS, it is necessary to provide an Application Programming Interface (API). Typically, APIs have been created using programming languages such as C or C++. However, a program-based API for the ASN.1and GDMO standards runs into difficulties when there is a need to expand the network services, for example by defining new types and instances of objects (e.g., a new type of workstation for a network manager). Another problem with existing network management systems is that they are restricted as to the protocols which the network management agents can support. In other words, the conventional approach to providing an API is problematic in a dynamic network management environment.
A general aim of the invention is to provide a structures which enable the development of a more flexible network management environment. Within this general aim, a more particular problem to which the present invention is directed is the provision of a dynamic network management agent structure.